The following people are continuing on, or standing up for election to the International Biogeography Society Board (January 2022 – January 2024). Many are running unopposed, or are continuing on in their current position, and we are grateful to all for their interest in serving the society and membership in this capacity.
Read below to learn more about the position and people running, prior to the election survey, due out mid-September.
For further information on the election process, please see: Constitution & Bylaws
Emails to the election will be sent to all active International Biogeography Society members mid-September, and the election survey will run for 4 weeks.
President/Past-President/President-Elect
The President is the primary spokesperson for the Society and is expected to interact with other societies, government officials and the public on behalf of the Society. The President may, subject to the approval of the Governing Board of Directors, appoint special committees and take such actions as deemed appropriate to accomplish goals as President of the Society and to further the interests of the Society. The President receives from the Governing Board of Directors nominations for the Chairs and Members of the Committees that report to those individuals. The President appoints committee Chairs and Members from the nominations submitted or requests additional nominations. The President may charge a standing committee through the Governing Board of Directors member to whom that committee normally reports. The President, with the approval of the Governing Board of Directors, may convene and appoint Chairs and Members to additional Special Committees concerned with the goals of the Society as defined in the Constitution. The Past President shall deliver an address to the membership at the Biennial Conference.
The President, with approval of the Governing Board of Directors, is responsible for the appointment and ultimate supervision of any staff or other employees that the Society hires to assist in the legitimate business of the Society as defined by the Constitution.
Continuing On (as part of their 6 year term):
President:
Felisa Smith
(https://biology.unm.edu/fasmith/)
Immediate Past President:
Kathy Willis
(https://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-katherine-willis#/)
Standing for Election:
President Elect
Up for election:
Susanne Renner
(https://www.amacad.org/person/susanne-s-renner)
Secretary
The Secretary records the proceedings of the Society, reports annually to Membership on actions taken by the Governing Board of Directors, maintains close contact with all members of the Governing Board of Directors, prepares in consultation with the President agendas for Governing Board of Directors meetings, and conducts all authorized ballots. The Secretary ensures that adequate records of all meetings of the Governing Board of Directors are maintained and that there is continuity with Society policies of the past and conformance with accepted Society procedures. The Secretary shall maintain a current collection of policies and resolutions approved by the Governing Board of Directors and shall periodically publish these with the Constitution and Bylaws. It is the responsibility of the Secretary to be familiar with the Constitution, Bylaws and policies of the Society and to provide information on these as requested by the officers, staff and membership of the Society.
Up for re-election:
Miguel Matias
Treasurer
The Treasurer is the chief fiscal policy officer of the Society and in this capacity is responsible for the development of fiscal and investment policy, review of the proposed annual budget, including Committee budgets, and oversight of the business, finances and management of the Society. The Treasurer is responsible for the annual audit of the financial records of the Society.
Up for re-election:
George Stevens
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgestevens/)
Vice President for Conference Organization
The Vice President for Conference Organization oversees the planning and conducting of the biennial conference of the Society. The Vice President for Conference Organization chairs the Conference Standing Committee.
Up for election:
Tereza Jezkova
Tereza is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Miami University in Ohio. She received her PhD in 2010, under the advisement of Dr. Brett Riddle at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Mammalogy and conservation committee of the American Society of Mammalogists. She has broad interests in species’ responses to environmental change, which she explores through an integrative approach that combines genetic, genomic and transcriptomic data with experimental data and ecological niche assessments. Her lab is currently working on searching for mechanisms involved in local adaptation in horned lizards, kangaroo rats, and salamanders. Her lab has also developed a novel, qualitative and quantitative approach to ecological niche divergence. Tereza is committed to graduate and undergraduate education and training the next generation of biogeographers and conservation biologists. Her life-long goal is helping to address challenges associated with global environmental change.
Vice President for Development & Awards
The Vice President for Development and Awards oversees efforts to increase the membership and funding of the Society. The Vice President for Development and Awards also oversees the development and awarding of scholarly and service awards. The Vice President for Development and Awards chairs the Development and Awards Standing Committee.
Up for re-election:
David Nogués Bravo
David is a Full Professor in Historical Biogeography at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research crosses the borders of biogeography, climatology and global change biology, with a special emphasis in using past biodiversity dynamics to better forecast the future fate of global biodiversity by integrating macroecology, paleoecology, genomics, and niche models.
Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications
The Vice President for Public Affairs and Communication oversees those Society activities related to public affairs, international affairs, public policy, and communication within and outside the Society. The Vice President for Communication and Public Affairs chairs the Communication and Public Affairs Standing Committee. The Vice President also chairs the Standing Committee for Publications. The Vice President nominates representatives to other scholarly societies when the Governing Board of Directors determines that such representation is needed.
Up for re-election:
Sandra Nogué
Sandra Nogué is a Biogeographer and Palaeoecologist with a main interest in long-term dynamics in island ecosystems.(https://www.southampton.ac.uk/geography/about/staff/snb1g15.page). Sandra has been part of the society board since 2019 as VP for Public Affairs & Communications, has been a member of the society since 2010, and was part of the organizing committee of the first IBS early career conference held at the University of Oxford in 2011. During her time as VP for Public Affairs & Communications, she has participated in the organisation and hosting of the ‘Funk Lecture Series on Biogeography’ and ‘International Humboldt Day’ activities, focusing on increasing outreach and communication. During this second term, she remains committed to promoting biogeographical research, and activities carried out at the International Biogeography Society, to increase its exposure and awareness in the context of the current global challenges.
Director at Large
Directors-at-Large, of which there shall generally be two, are responsible for maintaining awareness of the diverse views, goals and objectives of the membership of the Society and representing these as appropriate at meetings of the Governing Board of Directors. They should be willing to serve as chairs of special committees or as monitors for committees preparing special reports, if so asked by the President. They also serve as members of the Nominations and Elections Standing Committee.
Up for election:
Kevin C. Burns
Kevin C. Burns is originally from California, where he went to school as both an undergraduate (BA in Geography, U.C. Berkeley) and graduate student (PhD in Biology, U.C.L.A.). After completing his education, he moved to New Zealand to work at Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington) where he is now a professor in Biology. Burns is interested in a diversity of topics across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. However, he is especially interested in the natural history of oceanic islands and repeated patterns in the evolution of island organisms.
Nicholas Matzke
Nick Matzke is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at Waipapa Taumata Rau/The University of Auckland, in Aotearoa New Zealand. He received his Ph.D. in 2013 from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Before his Ph.D., Matzke worked at the U.S.-based National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit organization devoted to defending science teaching (especially on evolution and climate change) from political attacks. Matzke’s research focus is the development of methods for phylogenetic biogeography, including inference of biogeographical history and statistical comparison of models. His R package, BioGeoBEARS, has been widely used. Matzke has been a member of the International Biogeography Society since 2007, and has attended and given workshops at many IBS meetings. He has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Biogeography, and reviewer and assistant editor for Systematic Biology. As an IBS director-at-large, he would aim to represent the diverse views of members, particularly those from regions and communities that have historically been underrepresented in the field, and promote resources (conferences, workshops, open science, open-source software) that make biogeographical science more accessible to all.
Camila C. Ribas
Camila C. Ribas is a researcher at the National Institute for Research in Amazonia / Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations, Manaus, Brazil, and a Research Associate at the Department of Ornithology of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. At INPA she is the Curator of Genetic Resources and Associated Curator of Birds. Currently participates in the editorial board of Journal of Biogeography and Ecography, and is a member of the Science Panel for the Amazon (UN-SDSN). She received her PhD from São Paulo University studying phylogeny and biogeography of Neotropical parrots. Since then, her main focus of research is biogeography of the Neotropics, particularly Amazonia, combining information obtained from genomic data with distinct fields of research including ecology, geomorphology and paleoclimatology. Current research focuses on establishing historical relationships between biotic and abiotic evolution, and applying this knowledge for assessing and mitigating the effects of deforestation and infrastructure development on Amazonian biodiversity and on the Amazonian peoples that both sustain and depend on this biodiversity. Biogeography is an integrative science and as such IBS has a central role in understanding global change and its impacts on biodiversity through time.
Pilar Rodriguez
Pilar Rodríguez was born in Chile and lives in Mexico. She earned a Ph.D. in Ecology in 2006 from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), and has been recognized as a member of the National System of Researchers of Mexico since 2007. She has a broad interest in analyzing diversity patterns and the processes that explain them. Most of her work focuses in studying patterns of beta diversity, and how climate change and land-use changes affect these patterns. Most of her professional work has been conducted at the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity of Mexico (CONABIO) where she worked until May 2021, and continues collaborating as a scientific advisor today. She is also extremely interested in teaching, acting as professor of the community ecology course of the Biological Sciences graduate program of UNAM since 2012, and participating as a guest professor in numerous courses teaching different topics (biodiversity analyses, macroecology, and conservation biology) at different academic institutions. Additionally she has served in the editorial board of the Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad for the last 10 years. Currently, she is in a sabbatical year, dabbling with new research topics like insect biodiversity patterns and biotic interactions (particularly pollination), as well as the use of big data to develop biodiversity conservation strategies. She has been an active member of the International Society of Biogeography (IBS) since 2001. She is very interested in strengthening the training of Latin American students in the fields of macroecology and biogeography by inviting IBS members to participate in courses, symposia and workshops conducted using electronic media.
Student at Large
The Student-at-large is responsible for acting as a liaison between the Governing Board of Directors and the student membership of the Society and representing them as appropriate at meetings of the Governing Board of Directors. The Student-at-large organizes the student travel aid competitions and is generally asked to help increase student participation and enrollment in the Society, to act as a liaison between early-career scientists and the IBS board, and to improve the services offered by the Society to its student membership. To be eligible for the Student-at-large office, a candidate must be a current IBS member and, at the time of election, either engaged in graduate studies or within three years of his/her most recent graduate degree.
Israel Temitope Borokini
Dr. Israel Borokini is a postdoctoral research fellow in Prof. Brent Mishler’s lab in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California Berkeley, working on the spatial phylogenetics of the North American flora. He recently completed his Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno, where his doctoral dissertation integrated landscape genetics and ecological niche modeling for informing the conservation of Ivesia webberi, a federally threatened forb in the Great Basin Desert. Prior to starting his PhD program, Israel had conducted several conservation-related research studies in Nigeria (his home country), he represented Nigeria in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s ad-hoc technical expert group on invasive species, developed the country’s first invasive species living database to the GBIF, and also listed two species in the IUCN red list of threatened species. Furthermore, Dr. Borokini currently represents Nigeria (and the United States) in the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species assessment. Israel Borokini currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Conservation Science and Practice and Economic Botany. To learn more about Dr. Israel Borokini’s work, please visit his personal website, google scholar profile, or ResearchGate page.
Kyle Rosenblad
Kyle Rosenblad is a PhD candidate advised by David Ackerly at the University of California, Berkeley. His research seeks to disentangle the processes that shape large-scale spatial patterns of biodiversity, with an eye toward conservation and restoration applications. He is particularly interested in how climate interacts with other factors like topography, land use, and disturbance. Before beginning graduate school, Kyle worked as a musician for nine years. His decision to return to academia was influenced strongly by the supportive, energizing environment he experienced at the 2017 IBS Biennial Conference. If elected Student-at-Large, he hopes to help IBS bring supportive experiences to the diverse incoming generation of biogeographers.
